Recent content by Derin

The optimal age for children or young adults is about 1 year older than the target audience. This allows them to relate to the character while maintaining suspension of disbelief that they might be like the character someday. It's possible for them to relate to older or younger characters, of...

Depends. The alkali metals can be gathered together inside the victim's own body, unlike gunpowder.

Fair enough. Most of the forums I hang out on have the opposite problem; activity dies down until members get bored and leave.

Places have poswt per day limits? Why?

Then I don't think you'll have much of a problem. Common tropes that naturally arise from a good stories aren't off-putting, only cliches used as a formula by unimaginitive writers are. If you hang out on tvtropes you'll find descriptions for pretty much anything you could write anyway.

I thought Tamora Pierce handled it well in Song of the Lioness. She just had lines like, "Alanna shared the Dragon's bedroll, to Coram's approval." (Line may not be exact, I haven't read that book for about 8 years.) No tiptoing but not distracting.

I'd imagine most common cliches are subverted more often than played straight. So long as they're not subverted in the same way I don't see a problem.

I have a plot draft lying around here somewhere about a human child raised by goblins who is sent as an ambassador when humans invade the (fairly peaceful) goblin mountains. Have you read Dominic Deegan? Their orcs are fairly peaceful. And vegetarian, although they live in a land with vicious...

Here's a more depressing (but shorter) list. How to Become an Author, in 5 Incredibly Difficult Steps | Cracked.com

Youre username has the word "beige" in it. Everyone knows that males don't see more than black, white, primary and complementary colours. Stereotypes tell us so. QED

Hands = tools. I think that's the clincher. And things that don't represent anything on Earth take too long to describe. The aforementioned unicorns did really well for a non-toolmaking species, though. They had sharp hooves and horns.

Sorcery sickness is a common theme, so you have a lot of background material to work with. In some stories, people get a horrible fever and can die if they overstrain themselves. In others, magic weakens the body and merely makes them susceptible to other infections. Some mages go insane over...

It's a common theme. I don't think it has a name. I've seen them called Orbs of Power, power crystals, mage orbs, orbs of creation... crystals are even more popular than orbs, and some wands and staffs also get used this way. It's also one possible function of a familiar.

What sort of tone do you use? A playful tone can keep an audience enthralled long enough to get away with cliches for quite some time, in my opinion. Like The Princess Bride, for example. (Great book.) Many readers will sit through very cliched stories even if they're not exceptionally...

I don't trust those. Many of them are contradictory.